time

/taɪm/noun, verb, interjection

time is spelled T-I-M-E. The wrong spelling people search most is tiem: about 850 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 109 of all searches for the word. Time is a noun meaning “The inevitable progression into the future with the passing of present and past events”. The plural of time is times.

How many letters and syllables are in time?

Letters	4: T-I-M-E
Syllables	1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing	1,950 times per million words; the 62nd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched	2; the most searched, tiem, about 850 Bing searches a month (all of them)
Pairs people search	thyme vs time
Sounds like	thyme
Rhymes with	crime rhyme sublime slime more
Same letters	item emit mite

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How do you spell time?

Time is spelled T-I-M-E. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 103 of the searches for time in either form.

timethe right spelling91,170 searches a month

tiemm and e swapped850 searches a month

tiomean extra o40 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is time?

Time appears 1,950 times per million words in written English, the 62nd most frequent word form in the list.

time0.0010.010.11101001,00010,000

rarerper million words of written Englishmore common

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce time?

US /taɪm/
US [tʰaɪ̯m]
/təɪm/

Time has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-time.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with time

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

thyme vs time0 B

Sounds like: thyme (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Also written: time, place and manner restriction.

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with time?

7 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as time from its last stressed vowel (/aɪm/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: item, emit, mite.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of time

times plural, present, singular, he/she/it
timing participle, present
timed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does time mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

1
The inevitable progression into the future with the passing of present and past events.
Time stops for nobody. the ebb and flow of time
2
The feeling of the passage of events and their relative duration, as experienced by an individual.
Time flies when you're having fun.
3
A dimension of spacetime with the opposite metric signature to space dimensions; the fourth dimension.
Both science-fiction writers and physicists have written about travel through time.
4
Change associated with the second law of thermodynamics; the physical and psychological result of increasing entropy.
Time slows down when you approach the speed of light.
5
The property of a system which allows it to have more than one distinct configuration.
An essential definition of time should entail neither speed nor direction, just change.
6
A quantity of availability of duration.
More time is needed to complete the project.
7
A measurement of a quantity of time; a numerical or general indication of a length of progression.
a long time
8
slangThe serving of a prison sentence.
The judge leniently granted a sentence with no hard time.

verb

1
To measure or record the time, duration, or rate of something.
I used a stopwatch to time myself running around the block.
2
To choose when something commences or its duration.
The President timed his speech badly, coinciding with the Super Bowl.
3
obsoleteTo keep or beat time; to proceed or move in time.
4
obsoleteTo pass time; to delay.
5
To regulate as to time; to accompany, or agree with, in time of movement.
6
To measure, as in music or harmony.

interjection

1
Reminder by the umpire for the players to continue playing after their pause.
2
The umpire's call in prizefights, etc.
3
A call by a bartender to warn patrons that the establishment is closing and no more drinks will be served.
Time gentlemen please!

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate time?

Wiktionary records 2 abbreviations of time: PVT, t.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Time in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

Language	Words
French	temps (inevitable passing of events), époque, ère (extended period of time, defined or undefined…), moment (division of the day: particular moment or hour…), chronométrer (to measure time)
German	Zeit, Zit, Ziit, zeid (inevitable passing of events), Zeit nehmen, Zeit stoppen (to measure time)
Portuguese	tempo (inevitable passing of events), época (extended period of time, defined or undefined…), hora (division of the day: particular moment or hour…), cronometrar (to measure time), marcar, programar (to choose the time for)
Spanish	tiempo (inevitable passing of events), evo (extended period of time, defined or undefined…), hora (division of the day: particular moment or hour…), cronometrar, temporizar (to measure time), programar (to choose the time for)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does time come from?

From Middle English tyme, time, from Old English tīma (“time, period, space of time, season, lifetime, fixed time, favorable time, opportunity”), from Proto-West Germanic *tīmō, from Proto-Germanic *tīmô (“time”), from Proto-Indo-European *deh₂imō, from Proto-Indo-European *deh₂y- (“to divide”). Related to tide. Not related to Latin tempus.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How many letters and syllables are in time?

How do you spell time?

How common is time?

How do you pronounce time?

Words people confuse with time

What rhymes with time?

Forms of time

What does time mean?

noun

verb

interjection

How do you abbreviate time?

Time in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

Where does time come from?

Words that mean the same as time, and the opposite

What to look up after time